Enter at Your Own Risk Page 3

  “Thank you, Mr. Zipzer, for that moment of levity,” Principal Love said. “And what are you finding so humorous now? Another joke, perhaps?”

  I really couldn’t tell him this time. I mean, whose brain imagines a facial mole dressed in a martial arts outfit? Only mine, I’m sure.

  “That turtle just keeps cracking me up, sir,” I said.

  But by this time, Principal Love was over his laugh attack and ready to continue with the class.

  “Let me begin by answering the question that I’m sure is on everyone’s mind,” he said, pacing back and forth in his gi shorts. “And that question must be, why is your esteemed principal teaching a class on martial arts?”

  Joelle Atkins’s hand shot into the air.

  “That wasn’t the question on my mind,” she said. “My question is, where can I keep my cell phone during class? I love it more than anything and I don’t want anyone else to touch it.”

  Ashley rolled her eyes back in her head so far I thought they were going to slip around the back and never come down.

  “What’s with her?” she whispered. “What kind of person is in love with a telephone?”

  “I had a question on my mind,” Jonah Pattison said. He is a big fifth-grader who seems to have a sweating problem. At least, he’s always wearing a pretty sweaty looking sweatband around his curly hair, even in winter. It’s weird because he always wears a big jacket, too. If I were him, I’d take off the jacket, then maybe I wouldn’t sweat so much and I could take off the sweatband, too. But that’s me.

  “What works better under this gi?” Jonah asked. “Boxers or briefs?”

  “Eeuuuwww,” said Katie Sperling, who was standing in between Jonah and Nick McKelty. “Nobody wants to discuss your underpants, Jonah.”

  Nick McKelty let out one of his monster laughs, spraying a few drops of saliva in the direction of Katie.

  “Underpants,” he howled. “That’s a riot!”

  Katie Sperling ducked to avoid his spit spray, then turned to Principal Love.

  “May I please change places with Salvatore?” she said. Salvatore was standing at the total opposite side of the gym from Jonah and McKelty.

  “Oh, no, I’m not standing next to them,” Salvatore said. “I don’t want to be stuck between Sweaty and Spitty.”

  “Enough of this talk,” Principal Love said, clapping his hands to get our attention. “I intend to answer the question I posed. Why am I teaching the martial arts? Because, youngsters, what you don’t know about me is that I am an expert practitioner of several martial arts. Underneath this principal’s body beats the heart of a warrior.”

  Wow. My grandpa, Papa Pete, always says you can’t tell a book by its cover, and boy, in this case, was he ever right. I mean, when you look at Principal Love, you’re definitely not thinking Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. I mean, can you see one of those guys in a snowman scarf? Or Velcro sneakers? I don’t think so.

  “Now gather around me, youngsters,” Principal Love said, “and listen very carefully. We are here to summon our physical, spiritual, and emotional energy to develop a strong moral character.”

  “Excuse me, Principal Love,” I said, raising my hand to get his attention. “I think I’m in the wrong class. I thought we were going to learn how to break a piece of plywood with our foreheads.”

  “It is that kind of concentration that we are looking to develop in studying the martial arts,” Principal Love said. “It will take time, focus, determination . . .”

  “And a strong forehead,” Jonah Pattison chimed in. “Which I’m not sure I have.”

  “You’ve got protection in that sweatband,” Frankie said. “We’ve been waiting for that thing to come in handy for years.”

  Ashley laughed so hard that if she had been drinking milk, it would have come shooting out of her nose. Katie Sperling laughed, too, and I noticed that she sent a really deluxe smile Frankie’s way. And he returned it with his best dimple smile.

  The very next second Katie Sperling changed places again and wiggled her way in between me and Frankie. Frankie is good at everything, and it was clear that Katie Sperling thought so, too.

  From the corner of my eye, I noticed some commotion in the hall outside the gym. It was Mr. Rock herding about seven or eight kids into the library. They were making a lot of noise as they went in. Actually, it was more than noise. It was laughter, as in the sound you make when you’re having a good time. That didn’t make any sense. I mean, how could kids who were heading into the Reading Gym possibly be having a good time? And so soon?

  “I’d like you all to go to your backpacks and pull out a pencil and some paper as quickly and as quietly as possible,” Principal Love said to us.

  “Hey, I thought this was fighting class,” Nick McKelty called out. “Not a write-stuff-down class.”

  “If you are to be a practitioner of the ancient art of Tae Kwon Do, you must know its history,” Principal Love said. “First we train the mind, then we train the body.”

  As I got a pencil and some paper out of my backpack, I glanced out the door and saw Mr. Rock closing the door to the library across the hall. He caught my eye and waved.

  “Come on over if you change your mind,” he called out.

  I scurried back to the circle and joined the other kids sitting on the gym floor. Principal Love started to pace back and forth in front of us, his Velcro shoes squeaking with each step.

  “The earliest records show that Tae Kwon Do has been practiced in Korea for over two thousand years,” he began.

  “Two thousand years!” I whispered to Frankie and Ashley. “We’ll be taking notes until my next birthday.”

  “That’s eleven months away,” Ashley said.

  “I don’t have enough lead in my pencil for that!” I answered.

  “Mr. Zipzer,” Principal Love said. “I’d like to see you whispering less and taking notes more. My lecture will be filled with fascinating details, such as a thorough and complete description of early cave paintings found on the ceiling of the Mu Yong-Chong tombs of people using techniques similar to modern Tae Kwon Do.”

  Was he kidding? Were we all dressed in gis so we could sit in the stuffy gym and take notes on a bunch of ancient guys painting on tomb ceilings? Where was the action? Where were the roundhouse kicks? Where was the fun?

  Oh, I know. It probably listened for two seconds to Principal Love drone on about the history of Tae Kwon Do and said to itself, “I’m out of here,” and ran as fast as it could out the gym door.

  And speaking of fun, from the sound of things, I’m pretty sure it ended up in Mr. Rock’s Reading Gym across the hall.

  I looked around, saw that no one was watching me, and headed out. I think you know where I was going.

  CHAPTER 6

  TWO REASONS WHY I FOLLOWED THE FUN INTO MR. ROCK’S CLASS

  1. Principal Love’s right knee.*

  2. Principal Love’s left knee.*

  • Hank’s Note to Reader: I don’t mean to be disrespectful to anybody’s knees, BUT I do have to say that Principal Love’s knees were definitely unacceptable to my eyes. That is because of:a. wobbly skin where there should have been kneecap

  b. a large amount of hair covering the wobbly skin

  c. a mysterious pinkish rash on the left one

  d. all of the above

  The correct answer is D.

  CHAPTER 7

  I poked my nose into the library, where Mr. Rock was holding the Reading Gym. But since I needed to see what was going on, and not smell what was going on, sticking my nose in didn’t do me much good. So I stuck my whole head in.

  About seven or eight kids were sitting around a large square table. To be completely and totally honest with you, I didn’t even see who all the kids were because my eyes locked on one of them as they have never locked before. My stomach started to jimble-jamble like when you think you might have the stomach flu but you’re not sure. My mouth went dry like I was lost in the desert. And I wanted to move, but my f
eet felt like they each weighed a ton and I couldn’t take a step.

  I thought I heard Mr. Rock calling my name, but his voice sounded like it was hundreds of miles away.

  Meanwhile, my eyes hadn’t blinked once since my head entered the room. And here’s the weirdest part. What they were staring at was a girl. Not a Mets play-off on TV. Not a video game. Not a Swampman cartoon marathon. But an actual girl.

  Did you hear me folks? I said a girl.

  Now why would I, Hank Zipzer, be staring at a girl? Because she was beautiful, that’s why. I don’t know if you would think she was beautiful, because she wasn’t like regular, magazine beautiful. But to my own personal green eyes and frozen brain, she was really something.

  I could only see half her face because she was wearing a hat. Not a baseball hat, but a real hat like my grandpa, Papa Pete, would wear with what he calls a business suit. But the half of her face that I saw had an eye that was so blue it looked like the chest of the bright blue parakeet named Leo that lived with our neighbor Mrs. Fink until she became allergic to him and had to give him to her son, Franklin.

  The girl with the blue eye was wearing a red T-shirt with suspenders holding up her checkered pants. She had a look, this girl, that said, “Talk to me, I’m interesting.”

  If I could just get my feet to take a step into the room, maybe I could start that conversation. But my feet were not cooperating. They clung to the floor like tree frogs hanging on to the trunks of trees in the rain forest.

  Hank to feet. Hank to eyes. Hank to ears. Hank to all of Hank. Could any of you come to life? You’ve been in this doorway for a long time now, looking mighty goofy.

  Fortunately, Mr. Rock came to my rescue. He walked up to me with a big, friendly smile.

  “Well, Hank, I see you’ve made the decision to come halfway in,” he said. “Do you want to complete that decision and come all the way in?”

  “Most of me wants to,” I said. “But my feet seem to be the holdouts here. They have a mind of their own.”

  I saw all seven kids crack up, but I could only hear her laugh. She had turquoise braces on her teeth, and I noticed that they matched her eyes perfectly.

  Hank to brain. Are you actually thinking these thoughts? What is going on?

  “Well, let me help your feet get started,” Mr. Rock said, “and escort you to a chair.”

  The Angel of Empty Chairs must have been smiling down on me, because the only available chair was right next to her. I broke free of Mr. Rock’s hand on my shoulder and bolted over to that chair like a cheetah. Before I could even say, “I’m so happy I have a reading problem,” my butt was in the chair and settling in next to her. I glanced over at her and noticed something amazing. She had a set of drumsticks sticking out of her back pocket.

  A blue-eyed, hat-wearing, learning-challenged drummer. Is that the girl of my dreams or what?

  My heart almost stopped when I noticed she was turning around and looking at me. That could mean only one thing. I was going to have to talk to her. What would I say? And worse than that, she was looking right at me, close-up. Did I remember to use a napkin after lunch, or did I have chunks of tuna sandwich crusted on the side of my mouth? I started to reach up and do a tuna check, but stopped suddenly. What if I found something? What then? If I brushed it off, it would just fall down on the table and stare us both in the face. What would I say then?

  Excuse me, beautiful girl, but I seem to have saved some of my sandwich. Are you hungry? Would you like a bite?

  That’s terrible, Hank. You can’t say that!

  Luckily, I was pulled away from this nightmare thought by the sound of someone talking to me.

  It was her.

  “I used to do martial arts,” she said, looking at my gi. “I have an orange belt.”

  A blue-eyed, hat-wearing, learning-challenged, drumstick-carrying roundhouse kicker! This was just getting better and better.

  “My name is Zoe,” she said. “For your information, it means ‘life’ in Greek.”

  “Hi,” I said. “My name is Hank. I have no idea what it means, but it rhymes with tank. Also stank.”

  Hank Zipzer! What are you saying? Stop it right now. Wad up a piece of paper and stuff it in your mouth and don’t say another word until you get control of yourself!

  I was too embarrassed to even look at her, but I heard her. And she was laughing. In a really nice way.

  There it was. The old Zipzer attitude. And guess what, guys. It was working!

  CHAPTER 8

  “Welcome, everyone, to the first meeting of the Reading Gym,” Mr. Rock said as I settled into my chair and tried to concentrate on what he was saying.

  By the way, concentration is never easy for me, but it was especially hard with Zoe the Wonderful sitting next to me. All my brain kept thinking about was how someone so cool could be in Reading Gym. I mean, let’s face it. As much as they tried to make this sound like a fun after-school athletic club, it was still a class for those of us who aren’t exactly swift learners.

  I wondered if she was wondering about me. Like, what’s this guy doing in here? What’s his problem? Is he flunking out of fifth grade?

  “First, I want to congratulate each of you on making the decision to attend the Reading Gym,” Mr. Rock went on. “Each and every one of you is an individual. You are all so different in your own ways, and at the same time, you all share one thing in common.”

  “Yeah, we’re stupid,” Luke Whitman said, taking his finger out of his nostril just long enough to shout out this insulting remark.

  I hadn’t even noticed that Luke Whitman was there and was picking his nose as always. This should tell you how much I was focused on Zoe. I mean, it’s almost impossible not to notice Luke Whitman picking his nose. It’s so gross you just have to stare at him, like when you skin your knee really bad and you just have to keep staring at the scab.

  “No one in here is stupid in any sense of the word,” Mr. Rock said, handing Luke a Kleenex from the pop-up box he kept on a side table.

  “I don’t need those,” Luke said.

  “Trust me, you do,” Mr. Rock said. “And next time, I suggest you bring your own.”

  “That boy is so gross,” Zoe whispered to me.

  “You think that’s gross,” I whispered back. “Every day he uses a different finger to go digging. And the amazing thing is, he always finds something.”

  Zoe cracked up and that made me feel pretty good. Maybe I had learning challenges, but the Zipzer attitude was in fine form.

  “What you guys share,” Mr. Rock went on, “is that you all learn differently. And no matter how you learn, it has nothing to do with your intelligence. What we’re going to be doing in here is working on giving you techniques that will help you learn in a style that’s best for you.”

  “I like him,” Zoe whispered to me.

  “Mr. Rock is the best,” I whispered back.

  Look at this. We’re having a real conversation, Zoe and me. Just like that. No sweat. Just talking. Wow, this is really something.

  Mr. Rock spent the next few minutes describing what was going to happen in the Reading Gym. Each student was going to create a book that told the story of his or her life. We’d all have to write the book, illustrate the book, and then read the book to the group. And while we were making our life-story books, each of us would be working on our own individual learning issues like reading, writing, spelling, following directions, and so on.

  Leave it to Mr. Rock to come up with a really interesting assignment like that. For a minute, I actually thought it was too bad I was going back to Tae Kwon Do and not staying in Reading Gym for the whole ten weeks. It sounded like fun. Of course, not as much fun as breaking a board with your bare hands. Once Principal Love got through the history of Tae Kwon Do and got into the actual kicking and board-breaking part, the class was going to really rock.

  “Now,” Mr. Rock said, “how about we go around the room and have each of you say what is most difficult for you
in school. That will help me figure out an individual strategy to help you. Let’s start at this end of the room. Hank, that’s you.”

  Mr. Rock. What are you thinking? Can’t you see I’m working hard to impress Zoe? And you want me to confess that I can’t read, can’t spell, can’t do math, and can’t do well in anything at school except lunch?

  “Well,” I said, trying to flash the old Zipzer grin. “I’m just here because I was doing the Tae Kwon Do class in the gym and I was getting tired of looking at the principal’s knees, so I thought I’d take a hike across the hall until we get to the fighting and punching and kicking stuff.”

  “Hank,” Mr. Rock said. “I see you’re not ready to share your issues, and that’s okay. Let’s move on to the young lady sitting next to you. What is your name?”

  “Zoe,” she said. “I go to PS 9 and I’m in the fifth grade, but I read at a third-grade level because I have tracking difficulties with my eyes.”

  Wow. She just said it all, right out there. She doesn’t care who knows that she reads at a third-grade level. That girl is fearless.

  “We can work on that,” Mr. Rock said. “Reading exercises will make your eye muscles stronger and help you track better.”

  He gave her a big grin, and she smiled back at him. I wanted to be part of this smile fest. I stuck my hand up and waved it around urgently.

  “Mr. Rock, can I go again?” I said. “I think I’m ready.”

  “Sure, Hank,” he said. “I’m all ears.”

  “My name is Hank Zipzer, I go to PS 87, and I’m in the fifth grade, too. I don’t know what grade level I read at, but I can tell you it’s just above kindergarten. And I stink at spelling, and you can add math to that, too. I could wrap it up by saying I have learning challenges.”

  Mr. Rock gave me a big smile.

  “Excellent, Hank,” he said. “The first step in getting help is to acknowledge that you need help. There’s a lot we can accomplish in the Reading Gym.”